Barbaric creature! But there was a strange aspect of civilized modernity about her also. Her gray limbs were bare; the chains hung from her arms. Barbaric. The headdress; the heavy metal anklets, with pendent gems tinkling on them as she moved. But mingled with the barbarism was that look of modernity; a narrow black band like soft velvet encircled her throat; across the back of her shoulders, a black cloak hung in folds to her waist; a black ribbon around her neck held what seemed a pair of eyeglasses, with darkened lenses. She stood for a moment calmly surveying us as we moved instinctively away. Her long gray fingers, with a bank of jewels covering the back of her hand, toyed idly with the hanging eyeglasses. She spoke. “So you are the big man from the world of light?” Her gaze ignored Arturo; it was fastened on me. Calm, dark-eyed gaze. I felt the power of her then. There is an aura surrounding greatness. It cannot be mistaken. This woman had it, the aura of genius. An aura of evil, a fascination--evil but compelling. She gestured calmly. “Come over here. Stand up--here, near me.” I obeyed. I was alert, tense. I stood before her, taller than she by an inch or two. “So? They are right--you stand higher.” Her voice, with the most perfect use of my language I had heard from any of these people, had a purring, musing quality. She frowned a little. “So? They told me true--you stand higher.” “What do you want of me?” It was an effort to hold my voice quietly level, but I managed it. “He speaks, this man, when not directly questioned--” This darkling gaze. Not like Nereid’s, these eyes. Black pools, with a black fire down in them. Her lips curled with a faint irony. “You are not then afraid of me?” “No.” “So?” “Should I be?” “He questions--he dares!” Her jeweled hands came up. For an instant I thought she would strike me. But her hands dropped to my shoulders and rested lightly. One of the chains clanked against me. “He questions--he stares at me--he is not afraid, this man. What is your name?” She snapped it out with a rasp, so sudden a change it startled me. I jerked away from her involuntarily; but with a leap, feline, incredibly swift, she caught at my shoulders again and twisted me around. I stood docile. * * * * * “He is strong, solid.” Her appraising fingers bit into my shoulders. She added, calmly, this time: “What is it, the name they call you?” “Geoffry Grant.” She repeated it, memorizing it. “Why is it you come here to my world?” I said carefully, “My friends are here. We are going back--up there--” It seemed to amuse her. “So? You have your plans? That is wrong--men should have no plans. Men and children with plans are annoying.” A sound from the doorway made her drop my shoulders and swing around. Bhool came slinking in. He cringed. She rasped, “What do you want?” He answered her in his own language, but she checked him imperiously. “We do not talk that here.”